The general construction of hearing aids usually includes a microphone portion, an amplification portion, and a receiver portion. The microphone portion picks up sound waves in audible frequencies and creates an electronic signal representative of these sound waves. The amplification portion takes the electronic signal and amplifies the signal, and then sends the amplified signal to the receiver portion. The receiver portion produces enhanced original sound waves that are easier to hear than the original sound waves. Thus, a hearing aid user benefits from the enhanced sound waves.
Although hearing aid users benefit from the increased ability to hear sounds that surround them, prior art hearing aids were problematic in that they were fairly large. In particular, when a hearing aid was worn by a user, either in front or behind the ear, the hearing aid was visible by an observer. Furthermore, even when the hearing aid was recessed and a tube extended from the hearing aid into a user's ear, the tube was still visible by an observer. Thus, a hearing aid user often would not want to wear a hearing aid at all, when the hearing aid or tube extending into the user's ear was visible by an observer.
Thus, there has been a goal in the industry to create a smaller and smaller hearing aid which would fit into an ear canal, yet perform at the same or higher levels of performance than the larger hearing aid devices. Smaller hearing aids require smaller transducers which, in the case of microphones, means less source capacitance. As a result, the front ends of the amplifier portion 3, must have very high resistances and very low input capacitances in order to match or buffer to the source impedance. It is well known that Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET) technology offers higher gain and lower capacitance per unit area than Junction Field Effect Transistor (JFET) technology. Hearing aid microphones have traditionally used JFET front ends to achieve low noise. However, the push to smaller sizes makes the use of MOSFETs attractive. Specifically, the prior art used enhancement mode MOSFETs, Complimentary MOS transistors (CMOS), and/or other types of enhancement mode devices at the front end of the amplifier portion or after the microphone portion of these hearing aids. (For example, see Murphy et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,764,690). At the very least, this is done to reduce the overall size of the hearing aid device and to additionally reduce power consumption when CMOS technology is used.
However, problems arise when enhancement mode devices are used at the front end of the amplifier portion of a hearing aid device. Specifically, when a voltage is applied to turn on (or enhance) an enhancement mode device, carriers from the source to the drain of the device are conducted along the surface wherein the surface is the physical separation between the two dissimilar materials of silicon and silicon dioxide. As the carriers are conducted along the surface, trapping and releasing of carriers occur based on the vertical field between the gate and the channel, as is commonly known in the art. Therefore, there is always some component of electrical field pulling the carriers toward the surface, causing trapping and releasing at the surface. This trapping and releasing results in an approximately 1/f noise; f being the frequency of the noise.
At higher frequencies, one gets lower relative noise. However, at lower frequencies, frequencies commonly requiring the assistance of a hearing aid device, a relatively large amount of noise is produced from the trapping and releasing due to the conduction of carriers in the conduction channel of the enhancement mode transistor. The commonly known method of reducing the previously mentioned noise incorporates making the size of the enhancement mode devices very large so that the noise is integrated out by the increased area of the transistors. However, making large devices within the circuitry is contrary to the basic goal of creating smaller hearing aid devices.
Hence, when a signal is produced by a microphone, the impedance of the microphone must be matched or buffered to the transmission medium which receives the signal. Generally, as previously mentioned, in the case of a hearing aid, the microphone portion impedance must be appropriately buffered to the amplifier portion impedance in order for efficient amplification to occur.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide a circuit to match the impedance of the microphone portion and the amplifier portion of a hearing aid. This object is accomplished while, at the same time, solving the noise, size, and other problems of the prior art. This invention, while solving these problems of the prior art, also maintains the same or higher level of performance as the prior art.